


The Id

by jaxxOnasty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bad Touch, Concerned!Steve, Dissociation, Freudian Elements, M/M, POV Alternating, Slice of Life, in denial!tony, numb!bucky, the art of bad touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaxxOnasty/pseuds/jaxxOnasty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m a man of a certain age,” Tony tried to tell him.</p><p>Which only stopped Barnes from attempting to pin his knees to his shoulders.</p><p>-</p><p>In which Bucky lets himself be led by sensation, damn anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Id

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know where this would fit into the movies, especially since I haven't seen Civil War, but this fic has the Avengers' dynamics as of the end of AoU, but with Tony and Clint and Bucky tossed in.
> 
> I wrote this fic because AS MUCH as I love WinterIron, there needs to be more angst with these two. And also worried Steves.

-  
EGO  
-

Steve didn’t notice anything was wrong for a long time.

Yes, Bucky was quiet. He had the thousand-yard stare of soldiers who had been through too much, seen too much. He didn’t smile and, when he did, they didn’t come easy; he would smile at the sharp things, the playful arguments and insult games the team occasionally got into, the rush of a battle, a grimace of satisfaction at getting a bullseye in the middle of a target’s forehead. Steve found him sobbing in the shower twice, once fully clothed, the next covered only in blood. But only around his shoulder with the arm.

Recovery, Steve had learned, was a long and trying process. He wasn’t always as patient with his friend as he wanted to be and there were times when Bucky was deliberately stubborn in not caring for himself, but he still thought there was progress. Bucky never seemed as if he was trying to claw his way out of himself.

Anymore.

And the team… adjusted. For the most part.

“What’s the matter, “ Tony said one morning, the morning Steve began to notice. “Finally done having creepy knife-cleaning assassin staring contests with The Widow?”

Bucky said nothing, just like Tony expected him not to from the way the billionaire swept out of the room with a granola bar before Steve could even think to interject. And even then, what could he even say to Tony?

Things were… tamer now than they had been. Tony no longer bristled when Buck got that blank look on his face. Bucky had stopped fingering weapon handles when he got that blank look on his face in the billionaire’s direction.

Progress.

But there was obviously still tension; Bucky had killed Tony’s parents. There could be more than tension, so Steve supposed he could be grateful. What with Bucky’s recovery and the… grace Tony was handling the situation with.

And Steve supposed that the only reason he noticed anything was because he was looking for it. What had his mother always said about it? Some idiom he couldn’t recall, but it was there when he rounded the corner into the living room later in the day only for the constant chatter of Tony’s mouth to abruptly stop and Steve to get an eyeful of… whatever this was.

“Everything okay in here, guys?”

Bucky was quiet and so was Tony, but at least Tony reacted as if this situation was something that Steve had walked in on, interrupted. His ears were red, at least, and it took a second or two for his million watt press smile to boot up and it was subtle, but it was a reaction. Bucky didn’t so much as move until Tony had pushed out of his arms and left the room altogether.

“This is a thing now?” Steve asked before biting into the sandwich he had brought into the room to eat in the first place.

“Is a game on?” Bucky asked, his eyes alive above his sharp smile, then he didn’t bother waiting for Steve to nod before turning his back on the bookcase he’d had Tony pinned against and moving toward the television.

-

“So about earlier,” Tony started when he came into the workshop later that day. He dropped his notes on the last batch of team suit specs the inventor had sent him on the table between them, folded his arms and waited while Tony said nothing.

It wasn’t until the red ears were present again that Steve got, “I’m not - that’s not to say that I’ve never tried it, but I’m not - Me and Barnes aren’t… Stop looking at me, Captain. You’ve got the same expression on your face as you do when you watch Special Victims Unit.”

“I do not, Tony. I’m just surprised.”

“You’re disgusted.”

“I’m surprised,” Steve corrected, his eyes firmly locked with Tony’s. “I didn’t think you two liked each other.”

“Me neither. Because we don’t.”

“So sex?”

“Don’t say ‘sex’ with a question mark behind it again, Cap. There’s enough purity ring jokes about you on the internet already.”

“You guys are having sex. Period,” he said pointedly and Tony’s answering smile was genuine enough that his shoulders could relax some.

“I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you. This is the first time he ever stuffed his hand down my pants. I’m just as surprised as you are.” He moved to pick up Steve’s notes, then paused. “Scratch that; I’m definitely more surprised than you are.”

Tony seemed easy after that, in that open way he had about him. Easy and open, but strained around the edges, like it was taking everything in him to make it look easy until Steve left.

-

Bucky was the same for the most part, but Steve had a feeling that things were different.

He could see it in the way Bucky ate, the clothing he wore, the way he had begun speaking to others.

His food choices were mostly junk and then the green smoothies he had learned to make from Tony. The things he wore were too big, hanging too far past his wrists, dragging on the floor as he walked, loose and borrowed looking, but expensive enough that when Steve would accidentally brush against him, he had to fight back the urge to doubleback and rub the fabric between his fingers. And Buck smiled more. He joked more. Not just at the sharp things, but at the silly and sweet and childish and Steve wanted to like this so badly because it looked and sounded like progress, but the way it _felt_ …

He didn’t mean to watch them whenever they were in a room together, his mother’s saying just on the tip of his tongue, but he did anyway and seeing little moments that shouldn’t be intimate become just that; the way Tony’s eyes glazed over in team meetings not from long lecturing, but from watching metal fingers fidget or the way Bucky initiated touches between them, always Bucky first, always after eye contact.

And it never helped that the quarters in the DC headquarters were too close for his keen hearing: “Barnes, please… Let me… Not like last time, please… I want… Yesssss…”

“Funny thing is,” he said to Bucky one day. “I thought he was with Miss Potts.”

Bucky squared him a look, one that wrinkled his wide forehead and poked his lips out, something between a pout and a glare that ached something like his childhood so badly that he had to look away first. “That’s not really something I’m concerned about.”

“Possible homewrecking isn't a concern?”

“You know what me and him do, Steve. I’m not interested in being a part of his home. I just like the way his body makes me feel. And his eyes.”

They were quiet then, only the baseball announcers on the television a slightly less constant background noise when compared to the blood drumming in his ears. He looked at Bucky again and saw that same aliveness in his pale eyes he saw when his friend bit into a snack cake he stole from Sam or traded dirty jokes with Clint and Wanda and he felt disgusted. “There has to be a better way, Buck.”

“Maybe,” the soldier said, his forehead smoothing and his stare coming closer and closer to the present, but still too far away. “But I like this way so far.”

-  
SUPER-EGO  
-

There were at least 3 sex-tapes of him floating around on the internet these days and they were all of him with women. Dated from the days of slicked back hair, warmongering, drinking all night before accepting awards in public spaces and fiscal Republicanism. Back when Google searches of him produced pictures where the only people in spandex near him were sitting in his lap and not taking down supervillains.

So not too long ago.

Not long enough ago.

Atonement periods aside, anyone with good broadband could tell you that Tony Stark used to be a lot of things that he isn’t anymore, but one thing he never was and never will be is gay.

Most of the internet thinks he’s still with Pepper, some part thinks he’s just banging her and the rest thinks he’s cheating on her with other women - models, actresses, reporters, etc. He has a reputation of playing and flirting hard with women. He has a history of _female_ arm candy on red carpets, baby _mama_ headlines in tabloids and ‘who’s the lucky _lady_?’ questions in interviews that belies everything that’s been going on for the past few weeks.

Nowadays, he is used to living with strangers - he’s always been used to strangers, meeting new playmates, caretakers, lawyers, housekeepers, lovers, doctors, researchers, bookkeepers, scientists, board members - but living with them, waking up and having them in a space he built specifically for this was new and it took some adjusting. He thought he was adjusted.

Then Steve came home with a pet project attached to a metal arm and a body count.

It was easier when his AI would exuberantly warn him whenever he was about to turn a corner and slam into Raccoon Eyes. He still doesn’t quite know why he told FRIDAY to stop with all the warnings - maybe because he knew JARVIS would already be in tune to the nuances of the situation. Not that he wanted it like this, but this was what he got apparently.

So, one day, FRIDAY said nothing when Tony was with nobody in a hallway, pushing a code into the door panel hiding his workshop and then nobody was suddenly pressed chest to thigh along the line of his back. He took a step forward and nobody crowded him further into the door, thick arms on either side of him now and a scowl pressed into the back of his neck.

“We must stop meeting like this.”

“Why?” He did not shiver at the warm rush of air at his nape, but the following nip there… that’s what got him shivering.

“I was talking to the wall, if you must know, but I guess I can answer you.” Barnes lowered an arm - the shiny one - and wrapped it around Tony to tug him closer, as if he couldn’t feel the line of his erection against his ass enough. “This is different for me. I get that maybe for you, back in your day a quick hand in the dark was all the same thing, but we’re not exactly waiting for the bombs to fall on Normandy and I’m not… I’m not like that, I like women, so we probably should stop meeting like this.”

“I was dead before Normandy,” Barnes said in that far away voice of his; he sounded like he was drifting even while anchoring Tony to him. “And that was the end of it all, wasn’t it? Can’t hold out for your sweetheart, not even during D-Day? But a lot of fellas would say things like that back then, too; whisper they had a gal waiting for them back home, that they were good and God-fearing and wouldn’t be doing this if there was the right kind of companionship around.” He pressed his mouth to the edge of Tony’s ear. “Always been the wrong kind of companionship. ’S something I think about a lot.”

His hand - the warm one - was in Tony’s loose sweatpants now, the heel of it pressing his hard-on down, as if keeping it away, but a few of those long fingers traced the sticky crown of him in idle circles. Nobody touched him like this - it was nonsensical and unproductive, who would touch him like this? But here he was, whining with the back of his throat and trying to grind back enough to coax Barnes into touching him correctly. Or what had he said? The wrong way? Anything to get Barnes to touch him in the wrong way.

“Could treat you like my gal back home if it made ya feel better. Make all the excuses. Call ya ‘doll’, put my mouth on you an’ everything.”

Tony could only imagine what the tabloids would have to say if they got a look at him now. Tony Stark, owner and former CEO of Stark Industries, badass Avenger, risk taker, heartbreaker, pressed into a wall by another man and whining for it like a bitch Tony Stark.

He wouldn’t imagine what Howard would have to say about it.

Not when he was this close, at least.

Later, once he could finally get into the workshop, he would break something apart, build it back up and think about all the things his father died too soon to have an opinion on.

Not that Howard never had an opinion on homosexuality. He did. And it told of the time he grew up in. The same time that made Barnes so good at secret hallway handjobs. But Howard did have an opinion on it. And Tony could remember the way his frown looked under his mustache. It was the same frown that appeared when they started advertising feminine products in commercials (“Shameless. Some things need to be kept private. And decent.”) and the same frown that appeared when anyone protested anything (“People will kick up a fuss about crap these days. Where were they during the war?”). It was a dated opinion. Like all his other dated opinions. And they shaped the way Tony thought and felt for so long that all he could feel was a shameless, delicious _wrongwrongwrong_ when he came into Barnes’ hand.

And it still felt wrong when Tony turned so his back was pressed into the wall and let Barnes lick into his mouth and stuff his wet hand down the back of his sweats this time.

And Barnes did call him ‘doll’ and put his mouth on him.

“I’m a man of a certain age,” Tony tried to tell him, much later. Which seemingly only stopped Barnes from attempting to pin his knees to his shoulders.

“I’m older than you,” the soldier said, eyes amused and grey, practically colorless in the muted light of Tony’s room. The words didn’t make him feel like a boy again. No, it was the almost painful rush of shame that followed the thrill up his spine every time Barnes rolled his hips, a cold reminder in a hot moment. And it felt everything like being 14 and starting every fantasy with painted lips and large breasts and being left with nothing but sticky shorts and the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to look his college prep tutor Jeremy in the eye for awhile.

It was the feeling that no one could ever find out about this that made him feel young again.

-  
ID  
-

Cashmere was a good feeling.

He had the freewill to press his face to fabrics now, really feel them.

He could feel anything.

He could stop and inhale the scent of fresh baked goods when walking past a shop. But that was a scent.

The sensation of warm showers was something he never wanted to get used to. The feeling. That was a feeling.

The way Stark’s throat felt, veins warm and pulsing, Adam’s apple bobbing against his flesh palm, was addicting.

Cheetos were good. But that was taste. Tastes were different.

-

Stark’s eyes are dark and large and almost nothing like his father’s. Howard’s eyes were dismissive of him, never in a rude way, but always passing him by as if he didn’t have a moment of interest to spend on him. He never minded, back then when he was Bucky standing next to Steve. Always so busy, Howard was.

His son, however, always seemed to have the time to focus those big, solemn eyes on him. And with such emotion - nothing near what Howard would afford him - such emotion that, even while numb, he could almost make himself care.

Stark was often scared of him. Steve didn’t know. The Red Room student knew… Natasha was her name now. Barton didn’t know. Most everyone who found themselves distracted by Stark’s fast tongue and baubles and brightness didn’t know. Stark didn’t know.

He could see it in the way those eyes dilated around him. See the pulse in Stark’s neck going. The way his fingers slowed and then resumed their twitching on anything mechanical near them.

-

Cotton candy was still as he remembered it. Pure sweetness with a bite of artificial color, melting on his tongue and gritty on his fingers. That was how he described it to Vision. Good.

Vision agreed.

-

“Dollface,” he would sometimes call, just so Stark would look at him, red-faced, humiliated. He would purr it and Stark would look at him like this and shudder and come all over himself and he would purr it again and press his lips to the scar tissue on the still heaving chest and Stark would whine, but never stop him from building up another orgasm.

-

He really enjoyed laughing. Barton knew the most blue jokes, learned them growing up in a circus he said. Wanda had learned hers from her brother. He enjoyed them.

-

Rhodes did not like him, he decided.

Rhodes had nothing to offer him, didn’t make him feel anything.

Rhodes was avoided.

-

“You know, I haven’t had my ass played with this much since college.”

He lifted his head to meet the eyes Stark was giving him over his shoulder. He licked his lips and Stark flushed deliciously. Still, he could tell that Stark was in one of his moods. He normally did not do things like this, he would insist. This is the first and only time. No one touched him this way, they knew better because he wasn’t one of those… And he knew this about Stark, but that meant nothing. He wanted what he wanted. And Stark knew this, but still insisted on having these moments.

“Who licked your ass in college?” he asked, almost obligatorily at this point.

Stark huffed out a breath, still twisted as he was to keep eye contact with the man resting his chin against the cheek of his ass, but still going for nonchalant. “A freshman girl from Utah. Thought I was adorable. Wanted to experiment on me.”

“I don’t think you’re adorable.”

“Still wanna experiment on me, though?”

“This isn’t the first ass I’ve eaten.”

He reddened further still. “Then why?”

He hesitated then. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he didn’t know how to explain it. There was something about the tremble in Stark’s thighs. The exactly color of his shoulders when his blush reached them. The heartbeat he could feel when squeezing tightening balls. There was something about all of these things and the way Stark’s eyes would look at him before, during and after.

So instead of explaining, he placed his lips around the wrinkled ring of reddened skin and sucked until Stark was muffling his moans into a pillow again.

And that was the end of that.

-

He liked that Stark didn’t know what to do with his hands.

They would claw at his back and shoulders. Fist and un-fist lengths of his hair. Yank at the bedsheets, swat at the pillows, scratch at his own skin. They were everywhere, never focused, always moving, never finding something to distract him away from what was being done to him.

He liked that.

-

Steve’s mother had a sugar cookie recipe that he could almost remember.

He never asked Steve if he remembered it himself, but only because he remembered Steve being infamous for burnt cookies.

So he experimented. And it wasn’t the taste of anything he created that he liked too much. Not even the smell.

It was Sam always coming into the kitchen just shy of being around to help with the heavy lifting of cookie making.

It was giving Sam the cookies and watching him guess how much vanilla he added or took away.

It was Sam’s expressive face when the cookies came out badly or when they came out delicious.

It was Sam always saying, “I think it’s missing something,” even when they were perfect just to ensure that both of them would come back to this experiment at another date.

-

Steve looked at him like a stranger sometimes.

He decided that that was okay.

-

Stark always smelled so clean.

Even his sweat.

And Stark would tighten around his dick whenever he snuffled into his armpit.

-

Someone had told Miss Potts.

She would meet his eyes with the same challenge Stark used to, but he didn’t feel any need to answer that challenge at all.

Her eyes weren’t large and brown and hungry like he was.

So when Miss Potts was around and he would distract Stark away from her, even for a second, he would look into her eyes and continue not to care.

Miss Potts made things numb again, like Rhodes. He didn’t much care for her.

-

“Barnes… please…”

“Your cunt is so tight, baby. So tight.”

“Oh God.”

Stark could get off on words. He found himself wanting about that. Music had never much interested him beyond pulling another body close to dance or fuck. He liked it, but it wasn’t anything he needed. Sounds were good for warnings: a knife being unsheathed, a gun being cocked. Words were for orders.

And now to get Stark off.

-

Not again, Stark would beg. I’m old. Leave me alone. We’re not doing anything until tomorrow night. Old men like me need to recharge, Soldier.

And then he would press his lips and fingers and tongue to those old parts of Stark. The wrinkles around his eyes. The so soft skin under his arms. The pouch at the base of his stomach, just under the path of hard muscle. The sagginess around his nuts. The tops of his feet.

-

Steve suggested therapy.

“This isn’t right, Buck. None of this is right.”

“It feels nice, though.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted more Rhodey in this, but Rhodey totally would've kicked Bucky's ass, so he couldn't be all up in this like I wanted.


End file.
